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Last updated on July 24th, 2017 at 07:14 am
Might suicide bombing be a mere fashion trend, destined to vanish in the manner of shoulder pads and Wesley Clark? Matthew Parris thinks so:
We could one day look back on the era of al-Qaeda and the suicide bomb as we now look back on the Bader-Meinhoff gang and the Red Brigades in West Germany, student riots or the wave of aeroplane hijackings in the 1970s: cults and practices which at the time we thought might dominate the decades ahead, but which in the event never did. They fizzled out.
So will this, if we keep our nerve. Keeping our nerve does not mean, as Messrs Bush and Blair exhort, girding ourselves for war against the forces of darkness. That glorifies our enemies (and Messrs Bush and Blair). The war is not against evil but against silliness. The bombers are not evildoers inhabited by Satan; they are poor fools inhabited by superstition. They are credulous muppets. They are pathetic.
Genuine Muppets, by contrast, never go out of style.
- well thats a development Islamic terrorists have gone from sassiness to silliness in less than a few weeks.
One wonders with leftists as to whether they are completely mentally retarded or just morons.
Leftists could have been useful in this war ( and it is a civilizational war) by promoting womens rights in Muslim countries or by deconstructing Islam,instead they have chosen to side with evil again.The same as in WWII when they refused to fight against Nazism (until the Nazi-Soviet pact was broken)and the same as in the war against communism ie an ideology that murdered 100 million or more.Posted by slamming mo on 08/06 at 09:58 AM • permalink
So the secret is not to strike back, but to tolerate the foolish little moslems. After all, they are just misguided children, they’ll get over this phase if we only give them the chance to seethe and get it out of their system.
As I recall, Baader-Meinhof was broken up by force and the leadership arrested and jailed. No more romantic versions of terrorism.
Parris doesn’t seem to realize that the War on Terror isn’t about fighting suicide bombing per se, but about eliminating the mindset and the people who promote things like suicide bombing as means of conflict. Sure, suicide bombing could “go out of style”, but apparently Parris isn’t imaginative enough to think of what might come next, which is especially ironic since he has already (albeit inadvertantly, I guess) hit on the progression of terrorist tactics from targeted assassinations and airplane hijackings to suicide attacks in the first place.
I have often thought this myself – suicide bombing is a fad among a certain segment of the anti-Western movement. In time, the aura will fade and it won’t be the tactic of choice any more. In order to reach that point as rapidly as possible, though, it’s important to show those enamored of suicide bombing that no matter how many times they try it they will ultimately gain nothing from it. We have to stand firm against the bombings themselves and aggessively pursue those who would carry them out. The whole thing really would be silly and juvenile (like a four-year-old’s hissy fits) if in the meantime it wasn’t ruining people’s lives.
This cretin needs to spend some time in the real world. Parris is the classic example of an armchair general dictating policy based on how he thinks that the world should work. Typical leftie numbnuts “reasoning” is all we see here.
The suicide bomber is anything but an innovation. The terrorist attack on the Marines in Beirut was by a suicide bomber….in 1983!!!!
We’ve been “keeping our nerves” since then. Mostly. Except under Carter and Clinton. “Keeping our nerves” has done nothing to abate terrorism. “Keeping our nerves” has resulted only in more needless and stupid deaths at the hands of the terrorists.
So much for this being a passing “fashion”. “Fashions” that kill people generally get bad press, and aren’t called “fashion”. Bulemia, for example. Maybe Parris should tell them self-starved females to keep their nerve.
Suicide bombers are but one tool available to terrorists. Read your history, Parris! Or recent news events. Terrorism uses anything it can to create terror. “Terror”, “Terrorism”…get it? If a tool is ineffective, terrorists will try something else.
From the cretin’s final paragraph:
Now for the difficult part. If “terror” is to be spearheaded by suicide bombers, and if the suicide bomber’s real weapon is our horror of his conviction, then the “War” against “Terror” must become the war against horror: our own.
Love them danger quotes! It’s not a war of terror, folks, it’s a war of our horror! Amazing. He actually finds a new way to put the blame for terror on the real victims, and not on the terrorists. If we only just kept our nerve, those nasty terrorists would go away. Nice job of apologizing for the terrorists, Parris.
We must acknowledge, confront and shake off our respect for the suicide bomber. His tactic is pitiful. Scorn and disregard, not shock and awe, are the right response.
That “respect” is actually a respect for the capabilities of the terrorist, not for the scum bags themselves, or their creed. There is a difference. I need not respect the poisonous snake as a snake, but I sure do respect it’s ability to kill me. “Scorn and disregard” doesn’t work, as decades of terrorism have proved, it’s right up there with a group hug….”shock and awe” does work in that yet another terrorist is dead.
All of this is just another way to say “The west is at fault! The terrorists are the real victims! Don’t do anything, and the terrorists will go away magically!” [insert appropriate compassionate head tilt here]
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 08/06 at 10:20 AM • permalink
Could do what the British did in Palestine kcom to speed their change of heart. Wrap their corpses, or heads, in pig skin to bury them. Not an option I guess in this PC world where sacrifices of the innocent are becoming a necessity to sustain the moral cravings of the western anti-western. Why else would they constantly object to every attempt to protect the citizens of their nations.
Don’t think it will go away unassisted actually, while we can look back to 1983 for the murder of the marines the world has been becoming progressively more global since. Even for premodern paramilitary death squads the cyber world is an essential tool and that makes the war we are confronted with a different matter to the past conflicts we have had to face. And these men are no longer hitting at what was essentially the periphery of our world. And the virtual organisation is growing. Skinheads in Europe are getting together with them.
Aw, c’mon JeffS! You know that if we frown at them, and write them a letter telling them that we are very angry with them, then those ‘silly’ terrorists will go away!
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 08/06 at 11:51 AM • permalink
Mr. Bingley, are you urging the VRWC to adopt a non-compassionate head tilt, with a frown added for emphasis? Better call KKKarl Rove for any changes to the VRWC SOP.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 08/06 at 11:54 AM • permalink
I’m working on growing a uni-brow for just this sort of frowning; it’s so much more effective.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 08/06 at 12:34 PM • permalink
The thing you don’t seem to realise about suicide bombings is that we are not talking about silliness or fads.
Suicide bombing is a precision guidance and detonation system for deploying explosives to maximum effect against innocent civilians.
In the absence of a better deployment system, these motherfuckers will continue to seek their 72 virgins.
I’m afraid that the term “moderate Muslim” is turning out to be an oxymoron.
Frown? Monobrow? Meet our new leader.
He comes with inside knowledge on Osama, too, if you’ll recall.
Yeah, PW, but he’s just a puppet of the Zionist Conspiracy!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 08/06 at 01:54 PM • permalink
And the secret of surviving a mugging is to just lay there until the thug gets tired of kicking you…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 08/06 at 02:34 PM • permalink
Suicide bombing goes back to 1983? You guys must have forgotten the Kamikazi, equally deranged religious (Shinto) fundamentalists.
— Nick
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 08/06 at 06:34 PM • permalink
Here is more concrete evidence for you, PW.
As for Parris’ bleating about our horror.
You can probably see me shivering away in my moccies and trakkies and flannel shirt whilst watching Home and Away.
I am past horror. I am passed terror. I seem to be stuck on anger, and a growing determination to take action. Nothing foolish, of course. I see no sense in wrapping myself up in dynamite and blowing myself up for some power-crazed men.
It’s time to start using the lefties’ weapons against them, I guess. Peaceful, nonviolent resistance.
I wonder what Peter Garrett is making of all this?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 08/06 at 06:58 PM • permalink
Urban bombing has been the favoured tool of anarchists of all stripes since at least 1605 (the Gunpowder Plot). Joseph Conrad’s seminal 1907 novel The Secret Agent exposes the mindset and the manipulation of weak minds neatly in a fictional setting. Conrad’s anarchists are no different from today’s Muslim conspirators. Interesting that Verloc’s ‘profession’ is a pornographer.
Posted by walterplinge on 08/06 at 07:55 PM • permalink
Parris (a former tory member of parliament) is a prime example of ‘Blair derangement’ syndrome. Tony Blair has succeeded in driving a large proportion of the Tory Party bonkers. This is seen particularly in their response to the war on terror. They obsess over the reasons given prior to the invasion of Iraq and try and pretend that the matter can be dealt with simply by policing.
Winston Churchill must be spinning in his grave.
Posted by Just Another Bloody Lawyer on 08/06 at 07:59 PM • permalink
Thank God somebody finally spoke up.
Khaki is sooooo last season.
Posted by Jay Santos on 08/06 at 09:35 PM • permalink
#18: I do think the kamikaze pilots weren’t motivated only by religion. Good old-fashioned nationalism and the personality cult around the Tenno played at least as big a role, IMO, if not bigger. Shinto just made it easier for kamikaze to accept their fate. On the other hand, our jihadi muppets are motivated almost entirely by their religion, which of course makes sense, as Islam has its tentacles much deeper in a Muslim’s life than Shinto did for the average Japanese.
Cue comment from Richard Mc about tentacles and the Japanese. 😉
- Sticking my neck out here, but Parris might have a point. Bobby Sands of the IRA starved himself to death in a British prison twenty years ago – a few others followed his example until they realised that nobody, least of all Margaret Thatcher, was losing sleep over it. Result: IRA men behind bars started eating again.
A few people associated with a group called Ananda Marga were torching themselves not long before that. Who remembers their names today, or why they did it? Walterplinge, you’re right to say that urban bombing has been around for yonks, but blowing yourself up along with your intended victims is not so common. None of this is to say that we sit back and let the fanatics carry on until they run out of recruits. Of course we fight. But the other side has adopted a tactic that will inevitably contribute to its own downfall.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 08/06 at 10:17 PM • permalink
Hmm, maybe Parris has a point. There’s actually precedent for a Muppet bomber. There’s even a distinct resemblance to the human splodeydopes. Give him a turban and nobody’d know the difference.
Alas, I simply cannot take Matthew seriously.
No matter how I try, I can’t help think of Parris and his “Little England” chum A.N. Wilson as anything other than complete wieners.
Simon Jenkins often comes dangerously close to being one too.
On second thought, I was not specific enough.
Parris and Wilson are actually cocktail wieners.
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 08/07 at 05:57 AM • permalink
Converts to the cause from local domestic populations are the most dangerous, as they easily blend in with the general populace and don’t attract the attention of law enforcement. Since Joe Vialls “dissapeared”, no-one seems to be investigating the extra-terrestrial link to terrorism.
“The bombers are not evildoers inhabited by Satan;”
YES THEY ARE!!
“…they are poor fools inhabited by superstition.” THEY’RE THAT TOO!
“They are credulous muppets. They are pathetic.” AND THAT!!
OH, AND WHATEVER YOU THINK OF THEM, THEY’RE DEADLY. SO, BUGGER THE EMPATHY, A BULLET TO THE HEAD SEEMS TO ME TO BE PRUDENT, TO SAY THE LEAST.
- I think Parris’ sentiments are basically in the right place. The terrorists *want* us to become totally obsessed by them, they *want* to be our public enemy #1—so why give them that pleasure?
However, Parris didn’t express himself very well, eg. with that “credulous muppets” line.BTW how come so many people here, with the honourable exception of JABL at #22, just assumed Parris was an idiot leftie?
He’s actually, I’m afraid, got a solid Tory pedigree—Conservative Research Department, Tory MP for West Derbyshire. He even received a medal, presented by Margaret Thatcher, for jumping into the Thames and rescuing a dog! The guy’s a bona fide conservative hero!Posted by Lionel Mandrake on 08/08 at 12:38 AM • permalink
- P.S. The reference for the above is Parris’ page on wikipedia, which reads suspiciously like he wrote it himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_ParrisPosted by Lionel Mandrake on 08/08 at 12:39 AM • permalink
Parris is an example of where left wingers and right wingers go so far out that they go in a circle, and meet each other.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 08/08 at 03:14 AM • permalink
Oh, and Pat Buchanan is a bona fide conservative as well…..and I still think he’s loonie. Parris is but his brother-in-spirit across the ocean.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 08/08 at 03:17 AM • permalink
Nice comparison, JeffS… speaking of past fashion fads, Buchanan is a bona fide conservative, all right – circa 1939. In fact, his roots go back farther than that, to the Know-Nothings.
Sadly, for Pat, though, that doesn’t make him retro-cool. Some things deserve to be relegated to perpetual unhipness.
Suicide bombers, on the other hand… I hope nobody posting here ever becomes so sunk in idiocy as to dismiss these evil, lethal tools as “silly.” Silly is John Cleese strutting around like a stork doing a mating dance.
Stupid, on the other hand, is somebody like Parris who trivializes thousands of dead just to throw out a few sneers at “Bush and Blair.”
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 08/08 at 08:53 AM • permalink
The answer to the “suicide bomber-problem” is definitely evolution-throw intelligent design out the window on this one…
Posted by madawaskan on 08/08 at 09:02 PM • permalink
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